Agreed. (Well partially) The representation of staff fighting in DnD should kind of be looked at in a few ways.
Anyone can swing a staff at you and hurt you, not every one is a master.
Same thing with a club or knife.

It's a matter of using it without making a ass out of yourself.

I do agree with you however, guns are VERY easy to use. Basically as easy a crossbows.

Hell most of my info I gave was given to me in school, and those 5 cheifs were from 1 tribe. Thats how they ensured that the battle wouldnt end if 1 person got killed.

Well I am sure that you wear also told that Christopher Columbus discovered America. (Despite the vikings doing it before him) Shit there is allot of evidence that he Chinese visited California before that.
They most likely told you that Electricty moves as fast as or near the speed of light. (It does not)
They most likely told you that people thought the world was flat before Columbus. (People has known it was not for a couple hundred years)
They might have told you the Great wall of China is visible from space. (Despite it being thinner then most highways and ROCK COLORED)

My point being that what you wear told was most likely BS. They were most likely shot with a 30/30 round, which MIGHT go though one guy and hit another, its not gonna hit 5 people and kill them. Shit my 30/30 barley goes though Coyotes some times.
_
Even large bore muskets can't really pull that off, think about the American civil war .69 caliber mini-ball. That's a huge round, but most the time it would lodge in the first person it hit. Because it's a slow moving projectile by gun standards.
Also most of the American Indian war was fought with non-musket rifles. Many used revolvers and leaver action guns. (Not all mind you) But almost all of them were cartage fire.
Early European firearms were used to test plate armor, that's wear "Bulletproof" Comes from.

In a total vacuum electricity moves at near the speed of light, with anything in its way it starts to slow down. So in atmosphere is moves anywhere from 90%ish to 70%sh SoL. In water slower, in the ground slower and so no.

My point more over was that allot of the stuff they tell you in school is only particular true or is very outdated.

Guns, in a 3e/3.X/PF setting work about as well as exotics as half the other things on the list. I mean, look at the list of monk weapons that get slapped with that label. For d20, exotic has as much to do with what is common as opposed to what is simple to use. Pulling the trigger on a gun isn't hard. Learning how to actually shoot well under stress is much harder. If it weren't difficult police would never miss when forced to use their weapons. The military would have to invest such large amounts of time training troops to fight effectively with their weapons. And military elite units wouldn't make that level of training look like kids play. Just in the case of D&D tech level firearms, learning what to do when things go snap and not boom when you pull the trigger, and deal with other minor malfunctions, leading targets and estimating bullet drop and drift by range are part of the proficiency. I'd say that would be at least a martial slot.

Reload times are going to be you're biggest dispute I would suppose. Muzzle loading fire arms, especially pre-precussion cap with the minie ball, takes a bit of time. Pre-loading charges into tubes that can be poured instead of measured, helps. Along with loading blocks, they can cut down the time and fiddling with components at lot. This is assuming no "paper cartridge" such as used in the American Civil War. But, to keep things simple I'd treat it no differently than a heavy cross bow. If people are okay with hooking up your windlass, loading the bolt etc. in one round, why not the same with guns when you're working from preloads?

For rifles/muskets I'd put damage in a 2d6 range. If you're hurling a .50 + ball of lead at someone, it does a lot of damage on a hit.
Pistols, a 2d4.

Ranges are where people get picky. A musket has a fair range and a lot more ability for being accurate than given credit for. Volley fire does not encourage good marksmanship, but these aren't the rifled barrel, sniper weapons of their day. I'd still give them range increments for them around 50/60 feet. Puts you at 3 range increments just past the 50 yard line. Pistols, I'd give 25/30 feet, again about increments at 25 yards. Rifled barrels I'd give longer range, but a slower reload time, 1/2 perhaps.

blackstarraven, just a small historical note. The .30-30 cartridge wasn't produced until 1893, when most of the fighting with the American Indians, even the Plains tribes, would have ended a few years prior. What they would have normally encountered, if fighting the US Military of the post Civil War era would have been the .45-70 in something like the Springfield trapdoor rifle, perhaps the .52 Spencer repeating rifle. Both with more raw power than the .30-30, despiting being one of the first smokeless powder loads civilians were introduced to. Oh, Henry lever actions may have seen limited use just after the Civil War, in .44 RF. and been used by units moved westward after the war.

Guns, in a 3e/3.X/PF setting work about as well as exotics as half the other things on the list. I mean, look at the list of monk weapons that get slapped with that label. For d20, exotic has as much to do with what is common as opposed to what is simple to use.

Is vs. should.

Yes, that is how the rules are. No, that's not how the rules should be.

True enough. But, if you're looking at rule consistency, exotic proficiency for things you don't want to see in the game all the time works just like it's used in RAW. But, with guns, it's already well into house rule territory already. So, make them martial. Lets the combat classes all have access to them, which makes good sense, but doesn't have every person in the game automatically proficient with firearms.

Nah. If you don't want to see something a lot in the game world, you limit it with your NPCs as the DM. Player characters are the outlier. They're supposed to be the oddballs with all the cool stuff. The exotic weapon rules don't reflect that at all; they just punish players for wanting to have something interesting or, in some cases, not even that interesting. Bastard swords? Come on.